Getting Pregnant Is Difficult For Those Women Who Work Or Lift A Lot

Researchers found that women who are involved in heavy lifting and engage in long hours of work face delays in getting pregnant.

Audrey Gaskins, a researcher at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, published a new study. The study is published in Occupational and Environmental Medicine. She confirmed that women engaging in heavy work, both in terms of physical strain and long hours have problems in getting pregnant.

A study consisting of 1,739 nurses who were trying to get pregnant. Among them estimated 16 percent of them failed to achieve this goal within 12 months.

5 percent still hadn’t conceived after two years. The results yielded two outcomes. Working more than 40 hours a week was linked with taking 20 percent longer to get pregnant.

It was a comparison between women who worked 21 to 40 hours. Moving or lifting at least 25-pound loads several times a day was also tied to delayed pregnancy. It extended the time to conception by about 50 percent.

In short, women who work more than 40 hours a week or routinely lift heavy loads may take longer to get pregnant than women who don’t.

“Our results show that heavy work, both in terms of physical strain and long hours, appears to have a detrimental impact on female nurses’ ability to get pregnant,” Gaskins said in an email to Reuters.

In comparison, normal couples conceive within 3 to 6 months. That is if they are not faced with their own fertility problems. That condition may also be questionable if the couple is using drugs or alcohol.

The nurses involved in the study had night and day shifts. Others had rotating shifts. The shift was not found to effect fertility. 40 percent admitted to heavy lifting which was clearly found to be a cause.

Most of the nurses were also over 33 years of age. Most of them were also overweight. This could be attributed to their long tiring shifts and lack of healthy movement.

The shifts also affect their sleep patterns. The disturbances can also cause stress. Stress has been indicated as a strong factor in fertility problems.

The researchers suggested that the nurses should maintain healthy body weight. They should engage in more sexual activity. Furthermore they should avoid heavy lifting and long hours.